


While I'm Away from Here

by Mireille



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Excessive Drinking, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Multi, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:13:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22786987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mireille/pseuds/Mireille
Summary: Steve's dead, and the only other person who can really understand how Bucky feels is Tony Stark.That's... not ideal, given how little Bucky and Tony like one another.Then things get complicated.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers/Tony Stark (implied), James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark, Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 20
Kudos: 226





	1. and keep him strong

****

He didn't know why he was surprised to find Stark here.

Bucky had seen him slip away from the crowd at the memorial service, hadn't seen him at the smaller gathering at the compound afterward. If he'd had to guess, he'd have figured Stark was hiding out in his lab.

Instead, he was sitting on the edge of Steve's bed, a glass in one hand and a bottle in the other. 

Bucky decided not to comment. It was none of his business if Stark wanted to drink himself blind. It definitely wasn't his business today. 

"I nearly punched a guy," he said conversationally, instead, pulling out Steve's desk chair and sitting down in it backward. 

Stark took a drink before responding. "The only thing about that I find surprising is the word 'nearly.' No, wait, also that it wasn't 'I nearly shot a guy.'" 

Bucky didn't take the bait. "Just now, I mean. At the service. He came up to me and told me that ever since the Battle of New York, whenever he wasn't sure what the right thing to do was, he asked himself, 'What would Captain America do?'" 

That got Stark to look up from his intense study of the pile of the carpet. "Was the answer ever anything but 'something stupid and reckless and likely to get him killed'?" 

"Don't know," Bucky admitted. "Like I said, I nearly punched him. With my left hand. So I figured I should probably just walk away. 'Winter Soldier Assaults Mourner at Captain America's Funeral' isn't a headline any of us need." 

Stark drained his glass and then filled it up again. "What, exactly, do we need right now?"

There was only one answer to that, and Bucky wasn't about to say it. Not to Stark. Maybe he'd go cry on Natasha's shoulder later. Maybe he'd track down some of the final remnants of Hydra, driven far underground by the Avengers over the past few years and lurking in various bolt-holes around the planet, and kill them, slow and bloody. 

It wasn't like Steve was around to be disappointed in him any more. 

The silence stretched out for a while, until he got the feeling that Stark was about to answer his own question. Oh, fuck no. Stark was potentially drunk enough to be honest. "I could use a drink," Bucky said, instead. 

"I'm not sharing," Stark said. "It won't do anything for you, and besides, I need all of it."

Someone who gave a shit about Stark would probably have argued with him about that. It wasn't exactly a small bottle. Good thing for Stark's plans that Bucky really didn't care if he gave himself alcohol poisoning. 

He got to his feet. "I don't want your candy-ass booze, anyway. Steve has--had--some of that Asgardian stuff stashed away. Thor gave it to him, and I don't think Steve ever got around to drinking it." 

He went over to Steve's closet and poked around on the top shelf until he found it--a large glass bottle wrapped in cloth to protect it. He unwrapped it; the seal had been broken and a small quantity of the honey-colored liquid inside was gone, about enough for a single polite drink taken by somebody who wasn't trying to obliterate most of his higher brain functions. 

The only glass in Steve's quarters besides the one in the bathroom for tooth-brushing was the water glass that stood by Steve's bed. It still had water in it from the last night Steve had spent here, close to two weeks ago now; there was a light film of dust on the surface.

He took it to the bathroom, dumped the water down the sink, and rinsed it out. Then he went back to his chair, poured a generous measure of the mead into the glass, and drained half of it in one go. 

Jesus Christ, that burned. Unlike Steve, Bucky actually liked the taste of alcohol; it was why there was always beer in his fridge despite it not really affecting him. But this was strong, and he'd drunk enough to put a non-enhanced human under the table. 

A few more drinks, and he'd be under the table himself. 

A few more drinks, and maybe the constant loop of watching Steve fall would give him a goddamn break for at least a minute or two. 

"Look, Barnes," Stark said, staring down into his drink. "I don't know what you're doing here, but you're the last person I want to see right now." 

"You don't know what I'm doing here?" Bucky repeated. Jesus Christ, how the hell was Stark that stupid? 

No, it wasn't stupidity, was it? It was just that Stark was so monumentally self-centered that he couldn't begin to comprehend that someone else might feel the same way he did. 

"I know your way of handling things between me and Steve was just to completely pretend that they didn't exist," Bucky said, "but I'm not going to pretend just to make you feel better. For one thing, we just buried him. For another--"

"You don't actually care if I feel better?" Stark finished, with the ghost of a smile. 

"Hey, you said it, pal; I didn't." At least they hadn't gone straight for overt hostility. Steve would have been proud. Steve always did want them to get along. 

That wasn't going to happen. 

They'd reached a truce after Natasha had apparently sat Stark down with every single page of the Winter Soldier's Hydra file and made him read it without skimming. According to Steve, she'd even made him watch the videos. All of them. 

Even Steve hadn't watched _all_ the videos, and Steve was a glutton for punishment. (Bucky hadn't watched any of the videos, but then, he'd lived through it.)

That had made Stark a lot less hostile toward Bucky, but "less hostile" didn't mean "friendly." And once you threw on a healthy layer of jealousy on both sides, once Steve had refused to choose between his current relationship with Stark and rebuilding his previous one with Bucky--yeah. They managed, mostly by avoiding one another when there weren't any bad guys to fight, but that didn't mean they got along. 

They made an effort, for Steve. 

Bucky would have done just about anything, for Steve. Stark was the same way; it was one of the few things Bucky liked about the guy. 

And maybe, for Steve, he could try to be halfway civil to the one guy he knew was feeling the same way Bucky was right now. 

"I was going to say, if there's anyone in the world who knows exactly what's going on in your head, I'm pretty sure it's me." He took another long drink of the mead. It burned less going down this time. 

Stark's tumbler was dangling from his fingers, almost like he'd forgotten it was there. "You have no idea. I mean, I get it. I may not have liked sharing Steve with you, but I get how you feel about him. How he felt about you. But you really can't grasp this. You'd never understand how much I want to--" He broke off. "I am much too sober to be having this conversation," he said, and drained his glass. 

"How much you want to what? Build a time machine, go back, and convince Steve to be less of a noble, self-sacrificing idiot? See him one last time so you get to actually say goodbye? Punch him in the face because how dare he fucking get himself killed and leave you alone?" 

Bucky took another drink and a deep breath. "Shove him out of the way so that bullet hits the right person this time?" 

Stark's answer, when it came, sounded shaky. "All of the above?"

"Right there with you," Bucky said. "All the way." He paused for a second to let that sink in. "So don't tell me what I don't fucking understand." 

"He was supposed to be indestructible." 

"He definitely seemed to think so. On the other hand, you might have noticed that he was a dumbass." It hurt, using the past tense about Steve, but he made himself do it. Hiding from the truth didn't make it any less real. 

"A dumbass with terrible taste in men," Stark agreed. 

"Well, he picked me, so his taste wasn't all bad. But fifty percent's still failing." 

This, at least, felt okay. Bitching back and forth with Stark was familiar. Steve had hated that they did it, but too bad, Steve, this is what you get when you insist on keeping both your boyfriends and they couldn't stand each other. 

If Steve was looking down on him from the afterlife, the way Bucky remembered believing, back when he was a kid, that dead people did, he hoped this was pissing him off. 

_And I'm drinking all your booze, too. Deal with it, punk._ Bucky poured out another slug of that mead.

They drank in silence for a few minutes, and then Bucky heard himself talking again. "I spent twenty years or so expecting this to happen. Thought I was prepared for it." Stark's brow furrowed, and Bucky decided that given how little alcohol was left in Stark's bottle, making connections like that probably wasn't his thing at the moment. 

"Everybody expected Steve to die young," he explained. "Probably wouldn't make it to thirty, that was what the doctors told him. Hell, he almost didn't make it to _ten_. He got so sick one winter that my mother had to sit me down and explain to me that my best friend was probably going to die." Bucky sometimes wished the Wakandans hadn't been able to give him access to his suppressed memories when they repaired his brain. This memory, he really didn't need. 

"But he didn't die," he went on. "He was too much of a stubborn little shit to do that. But still, until he got that serum, I spent my whole life knowing that there was going to be a time when Steve was gone and I was alone. Then he got that serum, and I thought, great, we're going to get old together."

"Is there a point to this?" Stark set the bottle down and ran a hand through his hair. 

"The point is that even after all that, I still wasn't ready." 

"You think I was?"

"No. I think you're handling this every bit as well as I am, which isn't saying much." Another swallow of the mead. He'd thought it would soften the edges of his grief, but that was the one thing that still shone bright and clear in Bucky's mind. "Look. I hear drinking alone is a bad sign, so how about we both keep drinking here?"

"Getting so drunk you can't see straight is also a bad sign," Stark said, "at least that's what I've been told." 

Bucky shrugged. "That's a chance I'm willing to take." He was already feeling a little dizzy; that surprised him until he realized that the bottle of mead was half empty. "But you're going to have to deal with me coming over there. If I pass out, I at least want to be halfway comfortable." 

It was a big bed, chosen because two large men fit comfortably in it; when Bucky stretched out on the other side of it (taking off his boots first, because Steve wasn't there to bitch if he didn't), there was plenty of space between him and Stark. They'd technically been closer when Bucky was in the desk chair. 

Stark still glared at him for it. That was fine by Bucky. Hell, arguing with Stark at least gave him something to think about other than Steve. Thinking about Steve was exhausting. 

"What if I'd prefer to drink alone?" Stark said. 

"Pretty sure you have a room in this place. You can do it there. If you want to get drunk here, you're going to have to put up with me." Bucky had his own room too, obviously. He just didn't want to be in it. This was the last place where anything of Steve was left, and--and that probably didn't make a lot of sense, since he'd just been thinking that he wanted to not have to think about Steve for a few minutes, but nothing made sense anymore. 

Nothing had made sense for the last five days, since Steve had jumped in front of that damn bullet, and it had done so much damage to Steve's brain, so quickly, that he couldn't heal from it.

"Shouldn't have to be putting up with you at all," Stark muttered, still looking down at his knees.

It wasn't like he didn't know Stark was thinking that. It wasn't like he wasn't sure all of the others had been thinking that; a fleeting, shameful thought for some of them, a bitter certainty for others. 

"Not arguing that," Bucky said. Hell, it was kind of a relief to have someone come right out and say it: _You should be dead, and Steve should be here._ "I didn't ask Steve to save me. I'd have stopped him if I could." He didn't want to die, but given the choice between himself and Steve? Steve was going to win, hands down, every single time. 

The problem was, Steve had felt the same way, only in reverse. 

The problem was, there'd been no way to stop Steve. 

The problem was, Steve was gone, and Bucky was here, and no amount of alcohol was going to fix that. 

"What do you know, we agree on something," Stark said. "Steve would be proud." 

And then, to Bucky's horror, Stark started to sob. 

He didn't like Stark, obviously, but it was hard to sit there and look at someone, anyone, in that much pain and not do anything. Especially when you knew exactly how much pain he was in, because you were right there with him. 

"Hey," he said, sitting up and putting a hand on Stark's shoulder. "You're going to be all right. We're going to be all right." He forced a smile. "We have to be. Steve would be so damn pissed off at us both if we weren't." 

"Yeah, well, Steve's not here," Stark spat. "The only person I see in this room is you." 

Bucky expected Stark to take a swing at him; he'd braced himself for it. He wasn't going to let himself get into a fistfight--especially since unless he armored up, Stark wasn't going to be able to do any real damage. It'd smart a little for a minute or so, and that was all. 

What he didn't expect is for Stark to twist around on the bed so that he was facing Bucky, and then reach out and grab the front of Bucky's shirt, pulling him close and kissing him. 

_Kissing_ him, for fuck's sake. Well, sort of. It was harsh and angry and Bucky could taste blood from where Stark's teeth had sunk into his bottom lip, but technically, it was still kissing. 

And Stark kept pulling on Bucky's shirt, until he fell back onto the bed, dragging Bucky down with him. "Fuck you, Barnes," Stark snarled. "It should have been you we buried." 

"Not gonna argue with that," Bucky said. He was on top of Stark now, straddling his hips and using his metal hand to hold Stark pinned down to the bed. 

What the hell did he think he was doing? What were _they_ doing? 

Well, what Stark was doing was arching up off the bed, shifting his position slightly so that Bucky's thigh was pressed between his legs, in the perfect position for Stark to rock against it, and for Bucky to feel that Stark was already beginning to get hard from this. 

He'd been thinking that he wanted at least a few minutes of not thinking about Steve. This might do it. 

There were a lot of things this wasn't: nice, pretty, kind, decent. Probably not right, either. Definitely not a good idea. 

This was still Stark, and Bucky still didn't like him. But you didn't have to like somebody to fuck him. And it wasn't like Stark didn't want this; he was still arching against Bucky, hauling Bucky down for another bruising kiss. 

"You sure about this, Stark?" Bucky asked. "You really want to let this hand--" he dug his metal fingers into Stark's skin, hard enough that Stark hissed with pain-- "anywhere near your dick?" 

"Walk away if you're scared, T-9000," Stark said, "but I'm not going anywhere." For a moment, his voice was a little softer, a little more serious. "You're not going to hurt me in Steve's bed, and we both know that." 

"Yeah," Bucky said. "I guess we do." 

Stark clearly took that as permission to continue; he snaked one hand between their bodies and began to rub Bucky through his pants. Involuntarily, Bucky groaned, his hips shifting forward of their own volition to press into Stark's hand. 

He pushed Stark's hand away after a moment; the other man grumbled until Bucky started undoing Stark's pants, getting them open and pushing Stark's underwear aside to take his cock out. He bent down again to kiss Stark, then murmured against Stark's mouth, "Just let me handle this." 

Because Stark was, as Bucky had observed more than once, about as mature as the average twelve-year-old, he snickered. 

"I can stop," Bucky warned him, rolling his eyes. But he didn't stop, just got his own pants open, then spit into his right hand. He knew exactly where he could find lube in this room, of course, but something about using it felt ghoulish to him. Besides, for what they were going to do, spit and pre-come would ease the way well enough. 

Bucky braced himself using his left arm, curling his other hand around both their cocks and beginning to stroke them roughly. Stark's breath hissed between his teeth again, a sharp intake of breath as he raised his hips from the bed to thrust into Bucky's hand. 

"This working for you, Stark?" 

"What do you think?" Stark's fingers were digging into Bucky's back, clutching at him like a drowning man would clutch a life preserver. 

Bucky didn't answer, only kissed him again so that he couldn't say anything else obnoxious. 

Neither of them lasted long; first Bucky came, biting his lip hard enough to draw more blood to protect himself against the name he felt building in his throat; then, once he'd recovered his equilibrium enough to continue stroking Stark's cock, Stark followed soon after. 

This was natural, Bucky reminded himself. It wasn't betraying Steve. It was just something that people did; it was normal to look for physical comfort when you were grieving. 

And even though Stark wasn't the partner Bucky would have chosen, that made sense too. Everyone they knew was mourning Steve, but only Stark had suffered the same kind of loss that Bucky had. 

It was almost enough to make him feel a little more warmly toward Stark. 

Not quite, though, because Stark was already getting off the bed, tucking himself away and fastening up his pants. "Well, that was interesting," he said, "but I need to get out of here. And drink enough to forget this ever happened."

"I'm not any happier about this than you are."

"Great. Then for once, we're on the same page. Steve would be proud."

He left while Bucky was still debating whether or not punching him--with the metal hand--would be a bad idea.

****

Bucky didn't see much of Stark over the next several weeks; he and Sam had a few missions that kept him away from the compound for days at a time, and when he was there, Stark was either in the city on Stark Industries business, working in his lab, or holed up in his quarters. Probably, in the latter case, getting extremely drunk, since from things Bucky had picked up from some of the others, Stark was doing that a lot lately.

That was a relief--well, not the drinking; they needed Iron Man to be on top of things. But it gave any potential leftover awkwardness from what had happened the day of Steve's memorial service a chance to dissipate. 

Not that Bucky felt awkward about it. They were grieving, and they'd reached out to the nearest person. It had been intensely practical, even if Stark wouldn't be Bucky's first choice of partner, or even his tenth. 

Still, maybe that was for the best, too. At least this way, neither of them would be inclined to read too much into what had happened. They'd been reacting to the loss of Steve, and that wasn't anything to be ashamed of. It didn't mean that there was anything more. 

Which was why Bucky had no problem cornering Stark in the lab one day when his arm developed a minor fault. "Joint's seized in my little finger," he said when Stark looked up from his work at Bucky's entrance. "Not sure why, and it's a bitch to do anything but routine maintenance myself." 

"Yeah, okay," Stark said, then frowned. "Didn't I fix that for you already?"

"This is the other joint." He didn't know why that finger was prone to developing faults. The index finger or the thumb would make more sense to him, since those got the most use. But Stark's work on the first joint had kept it trouble-free for the next few months, so Bucky was happy to let him try to fix this second problem. 

"Give me a minute," he said. "Friday, initiate backup protocols and then pull up the schematics for Barnes' arm for me." 

A moment later, a set of diagrams of Bucky's arm came up on the display. "Okay," Stark said. "Which joint is it?" 

"Closest to the hand." 

Stark took hold of Bucky's metal hand and started trying to manipulate the joint. The two joints on the finger itself both cooperated--though the one toward his fingertip was a little stiff, which didn't bode well for it staying cooperative for too many more weeks--but he wasn't able to get the finger to bend where it joined Bucky's hand. 

"Same problem as before, I think," Stark said. "Not surprising. I know this isn't the original arm they fitted you with in the forties, but it's what, thirty years old? It'd be more surprising if it didn't have a few issues now and then." 

"Yeah, but why this finger? Those joints don't get heavy use." 

Stark had already gotten out his tools and started opening up the arm. "And that's why. You don't use this finger as much as you do the others, and that makes it easier for dust and crap to accumulate in the joints. Those movable plates in your arm give you a lot of useful functionality, but they do mean it's not completely airtight." 

Bucky nodded. "So what do we do about it?" 

"Right now? I clean it out, lubricate it, get it working again. The last joint too; there's a little stiffness in there. If we can avoid the problem completely with some preventive maintenance, that's a good thing."

"And long-term?" 

"Long-term? We find the time for me to do a complete rebuild. A brand-new arm. Maybe without the big red star on it. How about a smiley face?" 

"How about not."

"Grumpy Cat," Stark suggested. "Since you two are basically soulmates." 

"Could you stick to the point, Stark?" 

"Okay, okay. Jeez. Get a sense of humor, Barnes." Stark turned on a work lamp and adjusted it so that it illuminated Bucky's hand, then he bent down over it again. Bucky could hear the scrape of a probe as it pried free the accumulated debris in Bucky's finger, but of course couldn't feel it. His arm had pressure and temperature sensors built in, but only on the surface. Once it was opened up, he couldn't feel anything.

"Anyway. That's long-term. Medium-term, we're going to have to improve your maintenance protocols. We should have revamped them a long time ago, but I guess I assumed that since your arm had been working for as long as it did, whatever Hydra had you doing was fine." 

"They usually did some maintenance on my arm when they brought me out of cryo," Bucky said. "The protocols were probably just designed to maintain function when I was in the field." 

He couldn't be sure of that, because nobody had ever bothered to explain anything to the Winter Soldier. You didn't explain things to your gun. Stark probably would, because Stark had never met anything mechanical he didn't like better than he liked most people, but Stark was mercifully unique.

He poked around a little more at Bucky's finger, then picked up a spray can and pressed the button. The thermal sensors on the exterior surface of Bucky's hand registered intense cold. 

"Compressed air," Stark said. "That's going to be part of the new protocol. It'll help blow the dust out."

Once he was satisfied that the mechanism had been cleaned out properly, Stark squirted some lubricant into the joint. "Okay, try it out now."

Flexing his fingers was a little awkward with the access panel open, but Bucky could do it. "Seems to be working."

"Of course it's working. You brought it to me, not Jiffy Lube," Stark said. "Give me your hand back. I might as well take care of all of it at once, instead of you coming in every few weeks because you flipped Sam off and your finger stuck that way." 

"Are you serious about building another arm?" 

"Uh, _yeah_. I've already got some specs worked up, some concept sketches, a few of the components machined."

"Why didn't you say anything before?" 

He shrugged. "I didn't think you'd be willing to let me tinker with it."

Maybe he was right. Stark's initial violent hostility had cooled down long ago, but that didn't mean they were on friendly terms. And this wasn't a weapon or a simple piece of tech. This was Bucky's _arm_. It was linked to his nervous system. That was a big risk. 

"So what changed?" 

"You let me get pretty damn close a few weeks ago," Stark said. "If I'd wanted to kill you--if I'd _still_ wanted to kill you--that would have been my best shot, and I know you know that."

And Stark hadn't done anything like that. Yeah, it made sense that Stark would feel like it was worth bringing up the new arm now. He didn't like Stark, but he trusted him. Would wonders never cease. 

And because his next thought was how happy Steve was going to be about this--followed immediately by remembering that Steve was never going to be happy about anything again--he blinked rapidly to clear his vision and then said, "So, new maintenance protocols. Tell me," and let himself focus on the instructions Stark was giving him, and nothing else, until he got his emotions under control again.

When Stark finished outlining the revised maintenance protocols for his arm--and agreed to send a copy to Bucky's phone, because it wasn't like Stark always made sense when he was excited about something--Bucky tried to pay attention to what Stark was doing to his hand. 

Because of the very limited range of sensation the arm had, it wasn't physically uncomfortable, but psychologically, it was definitely a little weird to have someone--particularly Stark--poking around inside something he thought about as a part of him, not just a prosthetic. 

It was distracting, though, and that was good. He didn't want to start thinking about Steve again. "So you really think the best plan is to replace the entire arm?"

"No," Stark said. "I really think the best plan is to replace not only the entire arm, but the shoulder socket too. But that's going to involve surgery, not just engineering, and I wasn't sure if you'd be willing to go for it."

"What's wrong with the socket?" Hydra hadn't ever upgraded it, so Bucky had just assumed that it was still the best option available. 

"Apart from the fact that it's old enough to be drawing Social Security?" Stark looked up from the work he'd been doing on Bucky's thumb. "It's heavy, it's bulky, and that's aside from how uncomfortable it has to be." 

"I don't remember ever complaining about that." 

"No, because you're too macho to complain about anything less than a gut shot," Stark muttered. "But look me in the eye and tell me that it doesn't hurt." 

Bucky snorted instead of replying. The thing was, Stark wasn't wrong, but he had a pretty high pain tolerance, and he was used to this. His shoulder and back had hurt from the damn thing forever. It was just how things were. "And of course, you're brilliant enough that you can fix that." 

"Completely? I don't know. There are a lot of factors involved, and I'm not a surgeon. But I could improve it." 

That was something he'd have to think about. "Could you redesign the arm, and redo the socket later?" 

"Yeah. Of course. It'll be easier to maintain, lighter weight, just overall better, even using the existing socket. You really do want me to go ahead with this?"

"It sounds like I'd be stupid not to." 

"That's never stopped you before." Stark finished up his work and closed up the access plate. "There, all done. You're free to go." Then he hesitated. "Unless you want a drink? I was going to take a break. I don't have any Asgardian stuff handy, but I have some decent beer." 

Bucky frowned at him. "You're asking me if I want to have a drink with you." _After what happened last time_ , he thought, but didn't add out loud. 

"It's called being polite. But never mind. I think we both know I'm perfectly capable of drinking alone." 

Yeah, there wasn't much doubt about that. But he was here, and he didn't have another mission scheduled until the day after tomorrow, so there was no reason for him not to accept Stark's invitation, unless he just wanted to be an asshole to Stark. 

And right now, he didn't feel like being an asshole to the guy who was offering to redesign his entire cybernetic arm for him, just so it hurt him a little less. "It'd better not be stout," Bucky said. "I hate feeling like I have to chew my beer." 

"God, you're a wimp," Tony said, "but you're in luck; it's an IPA." Stark went to a small refrigerator in the corner of the lab, opening it up and getting out two bottles of beer. He opened them and carried them back to Bucky, handing one over before sitting down on his stool again. 

Stark looked at his bottle for a moment, then at Bucky, before raising the bottle up to clink it against Bucky's. "To absent friends," he said quietly, not meeting Bucky's eyes. 

"Yeah," Bucky said. "One in particular." 

Stark nodded, though he still didn't look up, and the two of them drank in silence for a few minutes. 

The beer might not have had any effect on Bucky--it was one beer, it wouldn't have had much effect on him before Hydra's experiments--but it was good, and it was cold, and it was nice to do something that wasn't a mission. Or preparing for a mission. Or handling the fallout from a mission gone wrong. 

Even if it meant spending time with Stark. 

Even if it meant that when his bottle of beer was half empty, Stark set it down and, for the first time since the toast, looked Bucky in the eye. "Got any plans for the rest of the afternoon?"

Bucky shrugged. "Drinking this. Going to the shooting range. I'm supposed to be meeting Sam for dinner." Trying to convince Sam that the world needed _a_ Captain America, even if it wasn't _the_ Captain America, and that Bucky couldn't be it. It was a necessary conversation, but that didn't mean he was looking forward to it. 

"You should probably skip the range," Stark said, and Bucky was about to ask him why, whether it had anything to do with the maintenance on his hand, when Stark slid out of his chair and onto his knees, right in front of Bucky.

Pretty gracefully for a guy his age, even, Bucky thought, and realized that it was his brain's attempt to _not_ process the fact that Tony Stark was on his knees in front of him. 

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

"If I was kidding," Stark said, "I'd have said something, rather than getting down here. This tile is hell on my knees." He shrugged a little. "If you don't want to, it's fine. It's no big deal. I just thought..." 

He trailed off without giving Bucky any indication of what he had "just thought." Which was a pity, because Bucky would sure as hell like to know what was going through Stark's mind right now. 

What was going through his own mind right now was a combination of "What the fuck, Stark," and "Okay, yes, fine, why not?" He held on tight to the "what the fuck" reaction, even though he set his own beer down, stretched--noticing the way Stark's eyes were drawn to the way his shirt rode up as he did--and said, "Yeah. We could do that." 

They were still grieving, Bucky reminded himself. Some of the raw edges were worn down by now; sometimes it took ten whole seconds after he woke up before Bucky remembered that Steve was dead. But that didn't mean they were okay, and if this was part of the grieving process, who was he to interfere? 

"Friday," Stark said, "initiate lockdown procedures. Nobody gets in here until either I or Barnes says so. Also, step down monitor protocols to level zero." 

"Okay, boss. Lockdown initiated. Monitor protocols, level zero."

"You could just say 'off,' you know," Bucky said. 

"I don't want her to switch off," Stark said. "Level zero means the only thing she's going to respond to is her name. No recording, no monitoring for anything but that. I figure you might like some privacy." 

"You didn't do that the last time." 

"We were in Steve's quarters. The only things she monitors for in the residential wing are significant disturbances in our vital signs, plus stuff like fire and intruders. But in here, she records everything that happens, both for security and because sometimes when I talk to myself, I say something brilliant." 

"Okay," Bucky said. "So she's not recording now?" He didn't want there to be a record of what he and Stark were about to do. 

"No. If she hears her name, she monitors for a few more seconds to see if anyone's giving her an instruction, and then either responds to that, or goes back to waiting for her name again, if I was talking about the day after Thursday. And lockdown means that no one can get in without one of us okaying it, so nobody's going to walk in on us." 

"You may possibly have given way too much thought to the logistics of having sex in your lab," Bucky said. 

"Nah, lockdown's part of the basic security protocols, and there needs to be some way to have confidential conversations that I can be sure will stay confidential. It's almost impossible to hack into the system here, but almost impossible isn't the same as impossible, and besides, other people have access." 

Then he added, "I mean, I also used those protocols a time or two with Steve; I'm not stupid." He smiled; it almost reached his eyes. 

Stark's hands were resting on Bucky's thighs now, nudging them apart slightly. "Now, are we going to talk about information security and privacy concerns, or am I going to suck your dick? I can go either way, but if it's the former, I'm going to get up from the floor." 

"Stay where you are," Bucky said, unbuttoning his jeans and then tugging the zipper down. "I don't mind listening to you talk when you're not full of shit, but I'd rather you do something else with your mouth right now." 

When Bucky took his cock out, it had already started taking an interest in the proceedings; he had to admit, as much as he didn't really want to, that he was looking forward to this. He might not like Stark, but the sex had been good that day, better than anything born of booze-soaked misery had any right to be. 

And Stark, more than anybody else, would understand that Bucky wasn't looking for anything to go further than the physical. Not with anyone, and especially not with him. 

Stark shuffled forward on his knees so that he was in between Bucky's legs. He wrapped one hand around the base of Bucky's cock, then leaned forward, lips parted. No teasing, no exploratory licks and kisses; Stark's mouth simply engulfed Bucky's cock, lips sliding down the shaft until they met Stark's hand. 

Bucky brought his hand--his metal hand, since Stark liked it so damn much--to rest on the back of Stark's head. He wasn't prepared for the way Stark moaned around his cock when he did: low and needy, sounding like it had been dragged out of him. It looked like it had been dragged out of him, too, from the way Stark glared up at him, silently daring him to comment. 

He didn't. He _did_ tug lightly on Stark's hair, getting another one of those filthy-sounding moans out of him, followed by renewed effort to permanently damage Bucky's ability to form a coherent thought. 

"Jesus, Stark, I'm gonna--" Bucky began, but Stark's only response was to keep sucking, until Bucky's vision whited out for a split second as he came down Stark's throat. 

When he pulled away, Stark was licking his lips with an obnoxiously smug expression on his face. Well, that was nothing new, Bucky thought; obnoxious smugness was Stark's default expression. But the slightly unfocused look in his eyes wasn't something Bucky was used to seeing, and neither was the sudden awkwardness in the way he looked away from Bucky, down to the floor. 

"Do you want--" Bucky began, because it was only fair to reciprocate, after all. 

"No," Stark said, and that surprised Bucky, too. "No, just--I'll let you know when your new arm's ready for initial testing, okay?" 

Well, that was a dismissal if Bucky ever heard one. "Yeah, okay," Bucky said, tucking himself away and doing up his pants. Stark had already gotten to his feet, pulling up more computer displays--an exploded diagram of Bucky's arm, among other things--and seemed to be determinedly pretending Bucky wasn't even there. 

"Thanks for the beer," Bucky said, and let himself out before Stark could reply. Or not, which seemed more likely.

****

Bucky had assumed that would be an end to whatever the hell he and Stark--mostly Stark, since it had been his idea both times--had been doing, and for a while, it was.

Stark had built the prototype for Bucky's new arm, and they'd had to spend a lot of time together while he was fitting, testing, and fine-tuning it. They hadn't been hostile to one another--Stark had actually seemed to be happy with the way Bucky wrote up bug reports for his arm (like the one where he'd tried using it to squeeze a tube of toothpaste, and had wound up detonating it all over his bathroom because the pressure sensors weren't working properly)--but there'd been no more friendly offers to share a beer, let alone anything else. 

And that was okay. That was fine, because that meant the two of them were both doing better, right? They weren't needing to cling to one another to help them come to terms with the idea that they'd lost Steve. They were managing just fine on their own. 

If by "just fine," you meant that Bucky was spending a ridiculous amount of energy trying to hide from the rest of the team just how not fine he was. There'd barely been any time in his life, at least since he was a little kid, that Steve hadn't been there with him. The years he spent as the Winter Soldier didn't count, of course, because he hadn't even really been a person then. 

He certainly hadn't been Bucky Barnes. He hadn't been Bucky until Steve had brought him back. 

He didn't know how to be himself without Steve. 

But he didn't think any of the others needed to know that, because what they needed--especially now that Steve was gone--was their second-string super-soldier. 

Besides, it looked like Stark was doing fine; he spent most of his time in the lab in between missions, but that was nothing new. Stark without Steve didn't look any different, didn't act any different, than Stark with Steve, except that the jokes he cracked had more of an edge to them. 

Which is why, when Stark showed up in the common dining room, where Bucky was using the big table to spread out his guns for disassembly and cleaning, and said, "So, not wanting to interrupt the creepy little love fest you and your weapons have going on here, but are you going to be free later this afternoon?" Bucky immediately assumed it was something about his arm. 

"Yeah," he said. "Want me to come to the lab?"

Stark shook his head. "My apartment. I want to talk to you." 

"I can't imagine you have anything to say to me that the rest of the team can't hear," Bucky said, beginning to reassemble his rifle. 

"Can't you?" 

Actually, Bucky could, now that he thought about it. He was pretty sure Stark was trying to track down that Hydra motherfucker who'd killed Steve while trying to retake the Winter Soldier. Not the _brightest_ Hydra motherfucker--what the hell was he going to do with the Soldier? Hydra was still in ruins, and Bucky's conditioning had been broken--but definitely a lucky one, because he'd taken out Captain America and then gotten away alive. 

"When do you want me there?" 

"Say, four o'clock or so? Does that work?" 

"It does." If Stark wanted to talk to him, that probably meant he'd found the guy he was looking for, and going after that piece of shit was something Bucky wanted in on. He was surprised that Stark was letting him in on it, to be honest, but it was a good thing. The two of them would at least make sure that Steve's killer got a one-way ticket straight to hell. 

Maybe Steve wouldn't approve of that, but Steve wasn't here. That was the whole problem. Steve wasn't here, Steve wasn't ever going to be here, Steve was _dead_ , and taking out one murderous asshole was a lot better than burning the entire goddamn world to the ground. 

It wasn't that Bucky wanted to do that. Not really. It was just that sometimes, it felt like the only thing that might possibly make him feel any better. 

He figured he and Stark had that in common. 

Stark left the room then, and Bucky finished cleaning his guns. It was still only mid-morning, so he put everything away, made himself a snack (strawberries year-round, he was never not going to love that aspect of the future), and hit the gym for a couple of hours, followed by some time on the shooting range. If he pushed himself hard enough, it was easier to not think. 

At five minutes after four, he was standing in front of the door to Stark's apartment. He'd even showered, even though ordinarily he'd have come straight from the gym just to piss Stark off. The last thing he wanted was for Stark to get annoyed and not let Bucky in on the kill. 

Stark let him in and waved him to a seat. "Drink?"

"No, I'm fine." He took the chair Stark had indicated. 

"I'm having one."

"What a surprise."

"What's that supposed to mean?" 

"It means that if you think nobody's noticed that you've crawled into a bottle since Steve died, you're not as clever as you think you are." 

Not that Bucky cared, except that it was going to interfere with missions if Stark kept going. It hadn't so far, but one of these days, there was going to be an emergency, Stark was going to misjudge how sober he was, and they were all going to be fucked. 

"And you're holding it together so well?" Stark went over to the bar and poured himself a very generous drink, holding it up like he was daring Bucky to say something about it. 

Bucky didn't feel like saying anything about it. He thought about lying to Stark, telling him that he was doing fine without Steve. Sad, yes, of course he was sad, but he was essentially okay. 

Except that he really wasn't, and Stark was probably the only person he could tell. Stark wouldn't pity him, wouldn't even be sympathetic. And at least then Bucky could tell himself that he did, in fact, let someone know that he was falling apart, and he didn't have to talk to anyone else about it. 

"Yeah," he said. "I'm great. I mean, I'm not sleeping, I'm mostly living on protein shakes because everything else seems like too much effort, and the only thing I want out of life now is to shoot one particular guy in the head. After that--" He shrugged. "After that I don't really care what happens to me. So yeah. I'm doing fantastic. But at least I'm not putting everyone else at risk because I can't face life if I'm not too drunk to see straight." 

"Oh, fuck you," Stark snarled, taking a long drink from his glass before coming to sit on the couch, not that far from Bucky. 

"Tried that. Wasn't impressed."

"Okay, now I know you're lying," Stark said. "Remember, I was there?"

"Anyway," Bucky said, because he didn't want to talk about that; it'd just lead to him being pissed off about Stark's attitude, and he was already pissed off enough as it was. "You found the guy?"

Stark's brow furrowed. "The guy? What guy?"

"The guy who killed Steve," Bucky said. "You found him, right?"

"....No? Why would I have found him?"

"You've been looking for him, haven't you?"

"No. Natasha and Sam have been looking for him, but they haven't found him yet. He's gone way underground." 

Bucky knew that, but he'd thought Stark had been pursuing his own search. "Then why the hell do you even want to talk to me?" 

"Why do you think?" He shrugged. "You're the only person I don't think I'm going to annoy if I want to talk about Steve. You're the only person who isn't going to think I need to just get over what happened to Steve, because you're not doing all that great at getting over it yourself."

"Nobody's going to think that," Bucky said, but he wasn't that sure. 

Nobody was going to really think that, but also, none of them were all that great at dealing with their own emotional baggage, let alone somebody else's. Definitely not someone like Stark's, since Stark could be an abrasive jackass when he was happy, let alone when he was this miserable. 

"Yeah, well." Stark shrugged. "Everybody else is trying to move on with their lives, and I'd like to do that, but it turns out, I fucking can't. And I stupidly thought that maybe you'd understand that." 

What the hell was Bucky meant to say to that? It wasn't like he wanted to sit down and have a heart-to-heart talk with Stark, but he also didn't know if he could walk away after a confession like that. 

Well, he could. But he kept hearing Steve's voice in the back of his mind, asking Bucky to help Stark for Steve's sake, and despite the fact that Bucky knew that was only his own mildly guilty conscience (Steve was gone, dammit), it was still hard to resist. 

"Yeah," he said finally. "I do. I can't move on either." He forced a smile. "Who knew? Some people you just can't get over, and Steve's one of them."

Stark's laughter sounded rusty, but at least it wasn't mocking. "Pretty sure everyone knew that," he said. "But we're the lucky bastards who get to experience it."

"So, fine," Bucky said. "We've established the problem. We've poured our hearts out to one another. What good is it supposed to do?" 

"I don't know," Stark said. "But maybe being miserable in the same room from time to time would be better than being miserable alone?" 

"Aren't you running the risk of a repeat of the thing you've decided never actually happened?" 

"The thing I've... oh. That." 

"Yeah, that. Which was fine. I mean, stuff happens, especially when you're as fucked-up in the head as we are right now, and I can understand deciding that since it didn't help, stuff needed to not happen."

"It helped," Stark said quietly. "At least, it helped me. I guess I'm the only one, but..." He shrugged. "It gave me something else to think about for a while." 

"Yeah, and that's why you got all weird--I mean, weird for you, even--in the lab after that last time." 

"I 'got all weird' because no matter what you might think of me, I'm not actually in the habit of blowing people in my lab," Stark said. "And because... I don't know. I felt a little bit like I'd betrayed Steve. Like _we'd_ betrayed Steve." 

Bucky considered that for a few seconds, then shook his head. "You seriously think that if Steve were here, that would have bothered him?"

"Yes." Bucky was about to argue, but then Stark went on. "I think he'd be sulking that we didn't invite him to watch." His smile looked forced, but it was there. "I mean, he did always try to get us to get along better. I think that would have exceeded his expectations. I know it exceeded mine." 

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means I liked it," he snapped. "Both times, okay? I wouldn't mind continuing to do that, are you happy now? And that's been messing me up, because here I am saying that I'm having trouble figuring out how to go on with my life now that Steve's gone, and I'm also saying that I'd be okay having sex with somebody else on a semi-regular basis." 

"I don't see how those things conflict with one another," Bucky said. "It's just sex. With somebody who doesn't even want any kind of emotional commitment from you. That's like saying you don't think you're sad enough about Steve because you're eating, or showering, or pretending to sleep." 

The corners of Stark's mouth quirked upward in a hint of a real smile at that last bit. "So are you saying you wouldn't mind continuing it?" 

"I'm saying that I came here hoping you'd found the bastard who killed Steve, so I could send him to hell where he belongs, but failing that, having sex with you again isn't a terrible consolation prize." He stretched his legs out in front of him, crossing them at the ankles and trying to look perfectly at ease. 

It didn't work, but on the other hand, Bucky knew he looked good in these jeans, and he wanted to give Stark a chance to appreciate it. "I mean," he went on, "assuming you haven't had too much to drink for that to be an option this afternoon." 

Stark rolled his eyes. "My dick is just fine," he said, "and even if it wasn't, it's not like I couldn't keep you happy anyway." He got up again, putting his glass down on the bar. "My bedroom's just down the hall, you know." 

"That an invitation, or just a statement of fact?" Bucky got to his feet. 

"Anybody ever tell you you're a smart-ass?"

"Yeah," Bucky said quietly. "I knew a guy, used to tell me that all the time." 

"He wasn't wrong," Stark said, and then pinched the bridge of his nose briefly. "Maybe we should forget about conversation and just get on with it."

"Good idea." Dammit, he shouldn't have brought up Steve. Sure, one of the advantages of doing this with Stark was that he didn't have to worry that those random moments of being blindsided by how much he missed Steve would kill the mood, because Stark was going to have those random moments, too. 

But that didn't mean that he wanted to be blindsided by how much he missed Steve. 

He didn't want to miss Steve either, but that was just what things were going to be from now on. 

Bucky followed Stark down the hall to the bedroom. Stark's apartment was bigger than the other apartments in the compound--fair enough, since it was his money that had built the place, and it wasn't like the others were tiny. There was more than one bedroom, for some reason; maybe it had been designed back when he'd been dating Pepper Potts? Plans in case they'd be hearing the pitter-patter of little feet? 

Bucky tried to imagine what Stark offspring would be like, but kept coming up with a disturbing image of a baby with a diaper and a goatee.

The bedroom was bigger than Bucky's, too, but with the same bank of windows, one-way glass that let in sunlight without compromising privacy. The bed had been made, or maybe it just hadn't been slept in. From things Steve had said, it was difficult to know which it would have been even back when Stark had had good days. 

"Get comfortable," Stark said, turning back the sheets. 

Bucky sat down in a chair in one corner of the room and began unlacing his boots. He hadn't gotten dressed with an eye toward easy clothing removal, so this was going to take longer than Stark would probably like. 

But Stark wasn't complaining; he stripped down to boxer briefs and an undershirt, leaving his clothes on the floor, and then just stood at the foot of the bed for a second. 

"Let me do that," he said, coming over to Bucky and crouching down, reaching for Bucky's boot. 

"Sure," Bucky said. "I could kind of get used to having you at my feet," he added, smirking so that Stark didn't take him seriously. 

And then, suddenly, in Bucky's head it was a night a few weeks before Steve had-- a few weeks before it happened, his mind swiftly corrected, because putting the verb along with Steve's name was still like a knife to the gut. 

A night when he'd just come back from a mission, battered and bruised because he'd pushed Clint out of the way just in time, absorbing the damage that Bucky could walk away from, but Clint wouldn't have. 

"Let me do that," Steve had said, and knelt down in front of Bucky to undo the knotted and muddy laces of his boots. 

Bucky's ribs had been aching, even though he knew they'd be fine in the morning, and so he'd nodded, letting Steve help him. Letting Steve take care of him, the way he usually pushed Steve away for trying to do, because it was too important to Bucky to know, all the way down to the bone, that he wasn't broken, that Steve didn't pity him. 

But this time, he'd hurt too much to argue, and there'd been a soft smile playing at the corners of Steve's mouth as he'd fought with Bucky's boots, finally getting them off. 

"Thanks," Bucky had said, and then, "c'mere." He'd patted his thigh, and after a moment, Steve slid forward, resting his head in Bucky's lap. 

Bucky had curved his hand around the back of Steve's neck, thumb rubbing over the skin. "Missed you," he'd said, quietly, and then neither of them had said anything else for a long while, just taking the rare opportunity to simply be in one another's company, to take comfort in each other's presence. 

Less than two months later, Steve was gone. 

"I can't," Bucky said now, flinching back from Stark's touch. "I can't do this." 

Stark got to his feet. "The best time to mention that might have been before coming back here," he said, "but fine. We don't have to." 

He shook his head, trying to get words out around the painful constriction of his throat. "Not this. I haven't changed my mind about this." His eyes were burning; he blinked hard because he wasn't going to let Stark see him cry again. 

"I just--I can't do _any_ of this. I can't... I don't know how to get by without him." There. He'd said it out loud. "I try to picture the future, and I can't see anything past finding the guy who killed him. I can envision us doing that, and then... nothing. There's nothing left. I'm not--I don't know who I am without Steve." 

"Bullshit," Stark said. 

"What?"

"Bullshit," he repeated. "Or horseshit, if you'd prefer. Look, I'm not exactly the president of your fan club. But your life isn't over just because Steve's is, and neither is mine."

"I thought you agreed that there's no such thing as getting over Steve."

"There's not," Stark confirmed. "I didn't say either of us was going to get over him. We're clearly not. But that doesn't mean that I intend to lie down and die."

"Says the man who's been pickling himself."

"Fine," Stark said. "You want to make that an issue? Then I will bet you one thousand U.S. dollars that you won't see me drunk again for--oh, nine months? That takes us to the holidays, and I'm not going to promise that I won't get smashed at Christmas. Will that satisfy you?"

"Twenty bucks," Bucky said. He had the money; that wasn't the point. He just wasn't going to blow a thousand bucks on a stupid bet. 

"Twenty bucks, then, and you can shut up and let me make my point. I don't intend to just lie down and die because Steve's gone. And I didn't think you would, either. I figured for Steve to feel about you the way he does-- _did_ , you had to have a little more backbone than that." 

Bucky glared at him. "It's nothing to do with my backbone, asshole." Fuck Stark. How dare he--seriously, Bucky had been right about him all along; Stark was the biggest jackass on the planet who wasn't actually evil. What the hell had Steve been thinking? For that matter, what the hell had _Bucky_ been thinking? 

"You don't have a reason to get up in the morning now that Steve's gone? Find one." He shrugged. "Get out of bed every single day just to fucking spite me, if that's what it takes. Just because you know that otherwise, I'm going to come find you and gloat that I was right about you." He took a deep breath, and as he did, he seemed to shrink into himself. 

Even his voice was smaller when he said, "And when you miss Steve so much it feels like it's going to destroy you, come find me, and we'll take one another's minds off it for a little while."

With that, Bucky's anger at Stark evaporated, like a soap bubble popping at a touch, leaving Bucky exhausted. "Only if you agree you'll do the same thing."

"Why do you think I asked you here this afternoon?" Stark asked-- _Tony_ , Bucky made himself think, because if they were going to keep doing this, he could at least think of the guy by his first name, no matter that this was firmly placed in the people-who-don't-like-each-other-very-much-with-benefits category. Calling him "Tony" wasn't exactly oozing with sentimentality.

Tony ran his hands through his hair. "Though I think the mood is pretty effectively killed, huh?"

"For now," Bucky said. "Doesn't mean we won't find it again later." 

"So... you're proposing that we just, what? Hang out?" 

"Well, not if you're going to make that face at the mere suggestion.".0

"I'm just surprised, that's all." 

"I'm not proposing that we hold hands and make friendship bracelets," he said. "But we could talk about the plans for the upgrades to my arm. I'm sure there's at least one game system somewhere in this apartment, so I could kick your ass at anything that involves shooting. There could probably be some food in there somewhere. And then we could see."

Tony hesitated for a long moment, then shrugged. "Video-game shooting isn't like real-world shooting," he said smugly. 

"I've been hanging out with Clint enough in the past couple of years to be aware of that, and I could humiliate you at both." Bucky thought he'd matched Tony's smugness level. 

That was apparently the right tone to take, because Tony gave him a faint, but thoroughly obnoxious, smile. "I am so going to look forward to crushing you."

"Your delusions are so cute," Bucky said, and smirked again while Tony threw a pillow at him.

****

They stumbled out of the quinjet, muddy, bruised, and exhausted. At least the mission had been a success, eventually, though they'd expected to be back at the compound eighteen hours ago.

"Rhodes and I are gonna order some food after we wash some of this filth off us," Sam said, rolling his shoulders and then stretching. "You in?"

"Depends," Bucky began; "if you're going to call--" 

He'd meant to finish with, "-- _that shitty chain pizza place that Rhodes likes, count me out,_ " but Friday interrupted him before he could get any further. 

"Sergeant Barnes, Mr. Stark requests that you come see him at your earliest convenience."

"Can it wait?"

There was a moment's silence before the AI answered. "It shouldn't." 

"Tell him I'm on my way."

Sam raised an eyebrow. "What does Tony want with you?" 

"He's probably just come up with another list of reasons why I should let him fix my shoulder." 

To be honest, Bucky had already decided to let him; he just hadn't had a chance to say so yet. While the man who'd killed Steve was still in hiding--he might not have been a very accurate assassin, but he was good at going off the grid, at least--the search had turned up numerous small Hydra cells, trying to re-establish themselves, and it seemed like either he or Tony was always away on a mission. 

Still, it gave Bucky a convenient excuse for why Tony wanted to see him now, even though Bucky suspected that wasn't anything like the real reason. 

It had been a couple of months since they'd agreed to seek each other out when things got bad for them. They'd spent time together, mostly either in Tony's lab--where they could claim that Tony was doing some kind of maintenance or fine-turning on Bucky's arm--or in his apartment, where no one would come in without an invitation. 

They'd had sex pretty often, even when they weren't any more miserable than their new normal, because why not? They'd also just been around each other, and that had been... weird, because it turned out that if it hadn't been for what Hydra had made Bucky do to Tony's parents, they might have actually been able to be friends.

They hadn't discussed keeping things a secret from the others, but they'd independently decided to, from what Bucky could tell. It was too complicated to explain to anyone else. If anyone asked him about it, Bucky would be honest, but there wasn't any need to volunteer information. They all knew way too much about one another's business anyway. 

Bucky made it about halfway from the hangar to the living quarters when he realized that he probably shouldn't show up on Tony's doorstep looking like the loser of a mud-wrestling match. 

"Friday," he said, "tell Tony I'll be there in less than half an hour. I need a quick shower before I'm fit to be around humans." Instead of going up to Tony's floor, he went to his own apartment, shucking off his sweaty, dirty gear on his way from the front door to the bathroom. 

He'd just rinsed the shampoo out of his hair the second time (the first time hadn't gotten all the mud out) when Friday broke in again. "Sergeant Barnes, Mr. Stark is requesting admission to your apartment." 

What the hell, Tony? "Let him in," Bucky said, because if Tony couldn't wait thirty damn minutes for him to get up there, Bucky wanted to know what was going on. "Tell him to stay the hell out of my bathroom, though." 

"I can lock the door for you, sir," Friday volunteered. 

Huh. Maybe there was some point to all the locks in this place being electronic, after all. The front doors made sense--it meant you could lock your apartment but not have to carry keys--but the bathrooms always seemed a little bit like overkill. 

But locking Tony out so that Bucky could finish sluicing the mud off himself without having to get out of the shower first? Convenient.

He hurried, scrubbing the mud away without lingering, no matter how good the hot water felt on tired muscles. He hadn't brought any clean clothing in with him, so he wrapped a towel around his waist and came back out into his bedroom. 

He really shouldn't have been surprised to see Tony sitting on the edge of his bed. 

He really shouldn't have been surprised to see that Tony looked terrible. He didn't look like he'd been crying, at least not recently, but his eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot, and there were dark shadows like bruises underneath them. He seemed to be sober, though, so Bucky still stood to lose his twenty bucks. 

Bucky turned to take some sleep pants out of his dresser, less because he felt like he needed to get dressed and more to give himself a chance to think of something to say other than, "Jesus, you look terrible." 

He should have known that if he was quiet for five seconds, Tony would speak up and save him the trouble. "You probably don't know what day it was yesterday." 

"I barely know what day it is today," he admitted. "It feels like we were out there for a week and a half." It hadn't even been three days, but they'd been grueling. 

"It was the fourth," Tony said. 

Which made today May the fifth. "Well, at least this year I'm not going to have to watch Sam and Clint try to outdo one another doing cheap tequila shots at El Perro Fumando," he said. He wasn't quite sure when Cinco de Mayo had become a thing the U.S. celebrated--sometime between the war and now, which covered a lot of territory--but he did know that if he never sat through that particular contest in that particular awful Mexican restaurant again, he'd be a much happier man. 

Especially since he didn't have Steve to keep him company during the drinking contest now. 

"May fourth doesn't ring a bell?"

Bucky found the pants he was looking for and pulled them on. "Enlighten me, Tony. I'm so tired I can barely stand up, I just washed about ten pounds of mud down the drain, and I'm going to have an interesting collection of bruises for the next twelve hours or so. My own name isn't ringing a bell at the moment." 

"The Battle of New York?"

That, Bucky had heard of. He just didn't remember the exact date. "Sometime in the spring" was as close as he could get; he knew there were some anniversary memorial services in the city--Steve sometimes got asked to speak at one--but he'd never paid attention to the date. 

But he knew it--well, the lead-up to it--had been the first time the Avengers had come together as a team. Which meant it had been the first time Tony and Steve had met. 

And suddenly, the reason Tony wasn't doing so great was crystal clear. "Oh. Shit. I didn't know."

"No," Tony said, "I guess there's no reason for you to. And I'd planned to keep myself distracted by being out in the field with you guys, but then Pepper threatened me with death if I didn't show up at that board meeting." He sighed. "Technically, nothing happened for several months after that, but Steve and I used to joke that the battle was our first date." 

"I can't apologize for not being here yesterday," Bucky said, "since you planned the mission."

And Tony had asked Friday to send Bucky to him as soon as he got back. Tony had showed up at Bucky's place when he couldn't wait any longer. Tony had volunteered what was going on in his head. 

Hell, Tony really was taking their agreement to lean on each other seriously. Not that Bucky wasn't, exactly, but this still came as a surprise. 

He sat down on the edge of the bed next to Tony. "You want to talk about it?"

"I don't know. I don't know what I'm doing here, really, except that I need to get out of my head for a while and I don't know who else to go to. Not that anybody else was around." 

Natasha and Clint were off on a mission of their own that Bucky suspected none of the rest of them wanted to know about. SHIELD might not really be a going concern any more, and Nick Fury might be officially dead, but they all knew that he was still in touch with Natasha, and that she and Clint sometimes did some work for him. 

Vision and Wanda went their own way most of the time, and Tony wasn't close enough to either of them to reach out, anyway. Rhodey and Sam had both been on that mission with Bucky. Thor and Bruce weren't even on the planet at the moment--the Hulk's adventure in outer space had given his alter ego a taste for space travel. 

He didn't know if Tony really had friends outside of the team. Spider-Man, kind of, but he was a kid. Pepper Potts, but he could see why Tony wouldn't talk to her about Steve, since she and Tony used to be an item, long before Bucky knew them. 

So yeah, in part, this was because there was nobody else that he could talk to, but Bucky still felt weirdly touched that Tony had reached out to him. 

"It's fine," he said. "This is what we said we were going to do. I mean, maybe work on developing a little more patience--"

"Yeah, that's not going to happen."

"I figured. And otherwise, it's fine. I don't mind. Let me finish getting dressed?" He'd probably just wind up undressing before too much longer, and it wasn't like Tony hadn't seen all the scarring around his shoulder, or that he was particularly shy about letting people see him with his shirt off before.

But he felt like there was probably a lot Tony needed to say before they went to bed, and he didn't want to give him a chance to get distracted and not say it. So Bucky got up, opened his t-shirt drawer, and then groaned as he realized that one, he really needed to take care of his laundry soon, and two, as a result, the only clean shirt left was one Clint had given him as a gag gift two Christmases ago. Bucky didn't even know if anyone else knew he had it; he didn't wear it outside his apartment. He'd probably have thrown it away, if he couldn't hear his ma's voice in his head telling him you didn't throw away perfectly good clothing. 

He should've given it to Steve, except Steve would have worn it, and then Clint would have noticed, and then Clint would have made sure that everyone in the compound knew that it was actually Bucky's shirt. And probably would have told them that Bucky had specifically.0 requested that shirt.

So when he turned around, he was wearing a shirt with a goddamn Iron Man helmet--in gold foil, no less--on it. "For the record," he began, as Tony started to laugh. 

"Don't tell me. Clint." 

"It was my Christmas present year before last."

Tony thought for a second. "He had someone bring him a freebie shirt from a tech expo," he said. "Hammer Technologies." 

"Apparently he had a theme that year, and that theme was being a pain in the ass." 

"Stick to your strengths, I say," Tony said. 

"Anyway," Bucky said, "clearly I've been neglecting my laundry, and this is the price I have to pay." But Tony had laughed, and the tightness around his eyes had eased a little, and maybe Bucky wasn't going to smack Clint in the head the next time he saw him, after all. "Come on," he said, "I'll make you some coffee."

"You don't have to do that."

"No, but I have to make some for myself if I want to stay upright, so I might as well let you have a cup, too." 

Tony followed him into the kitchen, pulling out a chair and sitting down. "If this is a bad time, I can go."

"This is a bad time," Bucky said. "But all my time is bad these days, and you're having a worse one, so sit there, wait for your coffee, and stop trying to get out of here without talking to me." 

Tony's eyes narrowed. "There's no way you can be sure that's what I'm doing." 

He snorted. "I have eyes and ears. Also, I have years of the experience of hearing Steve be frustrated by you." Maybe Steve hadn't talked to Tony about Bucky. Maybe Tony had flat-out refused to hear it. It wasn't like Bucky had wanted to hear any of it, but Steve's choices of confidant were limited, and Bucky figured being with Steve meant being there for Steve, even when Bucky had just wanted to say, "Or, you could just break up with him and then we'd both be spared the annoyance." 

"Steve really did get annoyed with me a lot."

"That's because you're really fucking annoying." Bucky smiled at him. "Of course, Steve was also really fucking annoying a lot of the time. I've spent basically my whole life in love with him, but that doesn't mean I don't know how much of a pain in the ass he was."

There was enough coffee in the pot for him to quickly pour a cup before shoving the pot back under the stream of coffee; he set the cup in front of Tony. 

Tony took a drink and then wrapped his hands around the mug, like he was trying to get warm. "Yeah, that's true, you do. We both know that." He managed a tiny smile. "He was our pain in the ass, though." 

"Damn right he was, and he was lucky to have us. Both of us. Almost as lucky as we were to have him." 

He repeated the quick-pour process to get his own cup, stirred sugar into it, and sat down across from Tony. "So. Battle of New York, huh."

Tony nodded. "Before that--well, there was some lead-up to the battle, obviously, but before Loki and the invasion--all I knew about Captain America was what I'd learned in history class. And I didn't trust that any more than I trusted the movies or the comic books or that really awful syndicated TV show in the eighties." He looked at Bucky for a minute and said, "The guy playing you was insufficiently hot." 

"Careful, I might forget how much you don't like me."

"Don't worry, I'll remind you." He sipped his coffee in silence for a little while. "Anyway. I had this image of Steve, between the history books and the media and the stuff my dad told me about him, and it totally did not prepare me for the reality."

"The mouthy overgrown punk?"

"Nah," Tony said. "I mean, yes, but also, just... he really was something special. We argued constantly back then--some of it was the influence of Loki's magic, I'm pretty sure, but also, we just got under one another's skin. Didn't change the fact that I knew that Steve Rogers is--was--one hell of a man. A hell of a lot better than me." He met Bucky's eyes then, silently daring Bucky to mock him for his admission. 

Bucky just nodded. "A hell of a lot better than most of us," he agreed. 

"I'm kind of surprised it took me a whole month to make a pass at him," Tony admitted. 

"Not that I made notes, but wasn't your anniversary in September?"

Tony laughed. "I didn't say he said yes." 

"I thought you claim to be irresistible."

"Yeah, but sometimes it takes time," he said. Then he shook his head. "So, yeah, it's been a rough couple of days. I should have told Pepper to reschedule that board meeting, but... you know. I couldn't think of a way to make an excuse. Pepper knows, but nobody else at Stark Industries does."

"You don't think 'it's the anniversary of the Battle of New York' was a good enough excuse for Iron Man? Also, since when do you need an excuse to skip a meeting?" 

"It wasn't on the actual day of the battle, so no, and since I've been trying to not let Pepper down as often as I usually do."

Oh. Yeah, it made sense that Tony would be trying to patch things up with his ex-girlfriend. Steve had always said that Tony did a lot better when he wasn't single, and at least Pepper would understand about Steve. 

"You could have talked to Pepper, you know. About this. She'd have understood." Would she? Bucky barely knew her, and most of what he knew was that she didn't like the thought of Tony being Iron Man. 

But she cared about Tony, that was obvious, and she wasn't a terrible person, so "I'm still a little messed up because my secret boyfriend died horribly a few months ago" ought to be something she understood. 

Tony made a face. "Yeah, Pepper strongly prefers that we keep things strictly business. Her new boyfriend trusts her, but it seems that he doesn't trust me not to try to get her back, and even though Pepper would probably slap me for trying..." He shrugged. 

"Well, sorry I kept you waiting," Bucky said. "Very sorry. I'd have been happy to be home on schedule." 

"You really do look beat," Tony said. "I should have let you sleep instead of showing up on your doorstep." 

Bucky stirred his coffee again before taking another drink. "You don't look much better." 

"Yeah," Tony said. "That's another reason I shouldn't have come here. Get me horizontal on a bed and I'm likely to just fall asleep on you." 

"You could do that, you know."

"What?"

"Fall asleep. I don't remember us ever saying that we were limited to just having sex and crying on each other's shoulders. We can drink our coffee, and you can talk if you want to, and then, since you don't want to be alone, you can go to sleep." He thought about how exhausted he felt now, how much more exhausted he was going to be after dealing with whatever emotional breakdown Tony was about to have. " _We_ can go to sleep. The bed's definitely big enough for two." 

"Yeah," Tony said, "but is it big enough for three?" 

He didn't need to ask what Tony meant. Steve might be gone, but his presence was everywhere: in this apartment, in Tony's, in the public parts of the compound, even in Tony's lab. And when the two of them were together, it felt practically like Steve's ghost was giving his silent approval that the two people he'd loved most were taking care of one another. 

"Yeah," he said, "I'm pretty sure it is."

****

Bucky was surprised to discover that in the morning, Tony was still there, asleep, in his bed. They'd talked for a while, each of them letting the other one look away without asking questions, because they might admit that they were there to cry on one another's shoulders, but that didn't mean they were happy about being seen doing it.

Then, for whatever reason--probably an intense desire to have something else to think about; Bucky had had the same urge--Tony had announced that he was hungry and started rummaging through Bucky's refrigerator. 

Which was how Bucky had found himself at ten o'clock at night, sitting at his kitchen table, eating scrambled eggs made for him by Tony Stark. 

They weren't bad scrambled eggs, either. Tony's fondness for takeout had led Bucky to believe that the guy was incompetent in the kitchen. "I didn't know you can cook," he said. 

Tony laughed. "I can't. Not by any real standards. I can make eggs, grilled cheese, basic pasta and sauce, that kind of thing. Stuff that's hard to fuck up and will keep you from being hungry. But it never seemed worth learning anything else--it's not like I do this for fun." 

"These eggs aren't raw. Therefore, you can cook," Bucky argued, to keep from thinking about the fact that the guy who apparently didn't like cooking had made him dinner. 

"Just eat your damn eggs before I throw them out," Tony had grumbled, and Bucky had shut up. 

After they ate and cleaned up, Bucky had jerked his head toward the hallway. "Come on. I'm wiped out." True, and more tactful than pointing out that Tony looked just as tired.

They'd gone to bed together, and they'd kissed for a while--how was this his life now, this was all Steve's fault--without talking more. Then, Tony had settled in against Bucky's side, his face tucked into the curve of Bucky's neck, and had fallen silent. 

Bucky had thought that Tony had just fallen asleep, and was thinking he ought to close his eyes and try to do the same thing, until he felt something hot and wet on his shoulder and realized that Tony was shaking. 

Jesus. More crying. 

He'd wondered if Tony was as tired of crying as Bucky was. Not annoyed about the other of them crying, just sick of doing it himself. 

He hadn't asked, though, because he was guessing Tony thought he was asleep, thought it was okay to just give in to his misery for a while. 

So he'd just shifted position slightly, so that his arm was wrapped around Tony, his hand on Tony's shoulder, and held on without saying a word, until eventually, he'd fallen asleep. 

But he'd figured that in the morning, Tony would be gone. Not "let us never speak of this again" gone, not these days, but just gone: in the lab, in the gym, on his way into the city for a meeting, somewhere other than still in Bucky's bed, sprawled on his stomach, limbs splayed starfish-like so that he took more than his side of the bed. 

Hogging the damn blankets, too. He'd pushed them down past his waist, which made it even more annoying: he didn't even want them. He wasn't cold. He was just a complete jerk, which wasn't exactly news.

Bucky looked at him for a moment, mentally making a catalog of everything he saw: the lightening of the shadows under Tony's eyes, the tension that was still visible in his back and shoulders. The way that, when Bucky put a hand on Tony's shoulder, he made a snuffling noise and, without waking up, curled closer to Bucky. 

And then, while he was noticing things, the way that something clenched, deep in Bucky's chest, when he did. 

Oh. 

Oh, shit. 

Goddamn it. 

Bucky didn't know what he would have done next--gotten out of bed himself? Gone to the gym, to the firing range, somewhere he could have put the last three minutes out of his mind forever? 

He wasn't going to get to find out, though, because Tony opened his eyes then, blinking sleepily and giving Bucky a smile that was softer, more genuine, than he'd known Tony was capable of. 

Maybe Steve hadn't made such a stupid choice, after all.

"Hey," Tony said. "I should probably--"

Maybe Steve wouldn't want them to be miserable forever, either. Or at least, not just miserable. They weren't going to stop missing Steve. That was something you never got over. 

But Bucky was pretty sure that if Steve could see them now, he was looking down at them with an annoyingly smug expression, saying, "See? I told you he wasn't so bad." 

And maybe Steve was right. 

"Stay," Bucky finished for Tony. "You should probably stay. I deserve a chance to prove that my cooking's better than yours, anyway."

Tony blinked at him again. "Stay," he repeated, slowly, like he was tasting the word in his mouth. "Yeah. Yeah, I could do that."

****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The second chapter is an epilogue. If you're content with the way this ends and don't want an improbably happy ending, you can skip it. If you, like me, love improbably happy endings, go ahead. :)


	2. the inevitable epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're happy with the way things ended, this epilogue is entirely optional. But I'm a softy, and I couldn't resist.

****

The message from Natasha and Sam had been emphatic, if not all that informative: _Get here, NOW. You and Tony, both_ , and then a set of coordinates. From the look on Tony's face as he checked his phone, he'd just received a similar message. 

If it hadn't been from Natasha, Bucky might have wondered if it was really as important as all that, but Natasha didn't tend to exaggerate. If she said the two of them needed to come to--

"Rumekistan?" Tony said. "What the hell is even in Rumekistan?" 

"Natasha and Sam, apparently. So probably an old Hydra base." 

_What kind of trouble should we expect?_ Bucky sent back, because obviously, if their teammates needed backup, they were on their way, but it'd be good to know what kind of weapons he should bring along. 

_Indescribable_ , was Natasha's reply, which was no help at all. Which was why Bucky got on the quinjet an hour later, essentially loaded for bear. 

Tony smiled as Bucky took his seat across from him. "This is going to be interesting, anyway." 

"Indescribable," Bucky repeated. "She's pretty good at description. I'm worried."

"I'm puzzled," Tony said. "There's no unusual activity in Rumekistan at all. Nothing. And the base they were going to check out was supposedly abandoned a couple of months ago. Hydra might like causing political instability, but living in the middle of it is another issue altogether." 

"I guess we'll find out when we get there," Bucky said. "I hate surprises." 

"Liar. You love surprises." 

"'Surprise, morning blowjob' is fine. 'Surprise, Tony's waiting naked in your apartment,' also fine, though next time, try the bedroom, not the couch. Clint's still traumatized." It _had_ answered the question of how they were going to tell the rest of the team about them, though. "Even 'Surprise, there's pizza' isn't bad. But 'surprise, you're walking into what is probably a Hydra trap' sucks."

"So you think it's a trap, too?"

Bucky stared at him for a few long seconds. "No, Tony. I was born yesterday and have absolutely no experience with either Hydra or being an Avenger, so I'm expecting that there were free kittens and Sam and Nat just don't have enough hands to carry them all home. I brought all those guns so that we could use the laser sights as cat toys."

"See, with that face and all the black clothes, people expect you to be a sarcastic asshole, and it lessens the effect," Tony said.

****

It wasn't a trap.

It wasn't a Hydra base, either; the coordinates were for a little hotel--more like a bed and breakfast, if that didn't sound too quaint and twee for a place as tourist-unfriendly as Rumekistan--that had a big enough field behind it that the jet could land without a problem. 

"What the hell, Natasha," Bucky said as soon as he was on the ground. She and Sam were standing at the end of the driveway; there was someone else several meters behind them, but they didn't register as a threat. 

And then they registered in Bucky's brain as something else entirely. 

As some _one_ else entirely. 

"Look who we found," Natasha said, and then something about a life-model decoy in the morgue, and experiments, but the words were skittering around on the surface of Bucky's brain like water on a hot pan, because all his thought processes were taken up telling his eyes that they couldn't possibly be seeing what they thought they were seeing. 

And then Tony's voice from beside him, soft and broken and full of desperate, deadly hope: "Steve?" 

That was all that it took for the man--for Steve--to start toward them, slower than Steve's normal speed, but still clearly at a run. 

And it was definitely Steve. His hair was too long and dirty, he had a beard you could hide a small goat in, and he was too damn thin, but it was Steve, he was alive, he was here, his arms were around both of them. 

Bucky might not have been wrong about the small goat, either, from the smell. But that didn't matter, because he didn't understand how Steve was here, but he was, and a genuine miracle could smell as terrible as it wanted to. 

He didn't know what, exactly, gave him and Tony away, but Steve pulled back to look at them, and yes, that was definitely Steve's most annoying grin. Bucky didn't even try to hide the tears spilling down his cheeks at that, because he thought he'd never see Steve being a smug jackass at him again, and there it was. 

"I leave you two alone for a few days, and what happens?" Steve said, but there was fondness in his eyes and in the curve of his mouth as he looked from Bucky to Tony and back again. 

"A few days," Tony repeated. "Try eight months." 

"I leave you two alone for eight months," Steve corrected himself, "if you're going to be picky about it, and what happens?" 

"Aw, you ought to know you can't leave us unsupervised," Bucky said. They were going to have to talk later--much later, once Steve had had a chance to shower and eat and sleep and probably eat again. But right now, he was just going to be here, with Steve, with Tony--

He looked at Tony then, not knowing how to ask the question. They'd come together because of their shared grief, and now that it was apparently over... 

But Tony just rolled his eyes and pulled Bucky closer to him. "God, don't be such an idiot."

That was a relief, but even more of a relief was not just the warmth of Steve's smile, but the tiny flicker of heat in Steve's eyes, even under all the exhaustion. He'd suspected a few times, before, that this would be Steve's ideal scenario, and clearly, he'd been right. 

He and Tony had been right, too, that they weren't going to just get over Steve, but the same kind of miracle that had brought him back to Steve, brought him back from almost three-quarters of a century of brainwashing, had brought Steve back to him. 

To them. 

"With you and Steve around, I'll feel left out if I'm _not_ being an idiot, though." Bucky rested his forehead against Steve's, his hand on Tony's back, and felt, as well as heard, Steve's chuckle, Tony's disgruntled snort. 

"Come on," Steve said, "let's go home. You can both yell at me for not coming back from the dead sooner once we're in the air." 

"It's like he knows us," Tony said, and Bucky was surprised at how right this felt, just like Steve had been there with them this whole time.

****

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from R.E.M.'s "Untitled": "hold him / and keep him strong / while I'm away from here." 
> 
> You can find me on [Dreamwidth](https://mireille719.dreamwidth.org/).


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